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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22636648">half-forgotten memories</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxSphinx/pseuds/OnyxSphinx'>OnyxSphinx</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>newmann one-shots [140]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pacific Rim (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bickering, M/M, The Drift (Pacific Rim), kind of soft actually???, the black velvet rabbits make an appearance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:08:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,444</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22636648</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxSphinx/pseuds/OnyxSphinx</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt and Hermann have a bit of a heart to heart about one of Newt's songs from his time with the Black Velvet Rabbits</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>newmann one-shots [140]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1286762</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>half-forgotten memories</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><a href="https://drsarah1281.tumblr.com/">@drsarah1281</a> asked: "Okay, now imagine I am falling in love with you. Can you picture it? Now picture that backwards."</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They are falling.</p><p>The air around screams a high E-flat, and Newt’s mind is full of the black and white of a piano, set in the middle of their living-room—except, no, not <em>their,</em> because Newt grew up in a two-bed apartment in Berlin, its wallpaper cracked and peeling and the only piano he ever got close to was an electric keyboard, its keys plastic and, in places, sticky, not the white of polished ivory.</p><p>He remembers playing it with sure hands, a deftness that he knows isn’t his; he’s always been better with stringed instruments, but <em>he</em> has played the piano.</p><p>No.</p><p>Nope, <em>not</em> Newt who played the piano. That was Hermann. Not him.</p><p>Record scratch. Rewind. The Drift bursts in blue and they are swept away.</p><p>Hermann’s memories unspool beneath his fingertips, cocoon him in vibrant strands of colourless sensory input. Garmisch-Partenkirchen; the chirp of birds he can’t see, the hot brush of the sun against his skin. The cobblestones of Oxford. The scent of ink.</p><p>The kaiju hivemind floods their minds.</p><p>And then, just like that, they’re out; Newt’s knees are hitting the pavement with a painful crack and he feels a bit like the force of it has dislodged every bone in his body.</p><p>“Ow,” he moans, and the sound comes out a bit nasal. His face throbs. Red specks grow up from the ground—except, no, actually, he’s just <em>bleeding</em> again.</p><p>“You’re bleeding,” Hermann says, a fraction of a second later, and Newt doesn’t snap out the retort he’s thinking of because Hermann’s voice is strained and Newt’s pretty sure he’s more than a <em>little</em> freaked out and trying to hold on to—to <em>anything</em> he can.</p><p>So instead, he just says, “Nng,” tips his head forward, breathing as evenly as he can; digs out a (Hermann’s) handkerchief from his pocket, thrusting it in what he’s pretty sure is the physicist’s direction on a hunch.</p><p>A moment later, Hermann grabs it from him and goes stumbling to heave up the meagre lunch he ate fourteen hours ago.</p><p>Newt’s nose finally stops bleeding, which is probably a good sign, and he gives an experimental tilt of his head to confirm; when nothing starts bleeding again, he makes his way over to Hermann. “Hey bud,” he says, “how are you.”</p><p>“To use your insipid colloquialisms,” Hermann says, between teeth Newt’s can’t see, but rather can feel, are grit, “I am <em>straight-up not having a good time,</em> Newton, <em>thank you for asking.</em>”</p><p>“Stop being me,” Newt snaps, “I need you to be you, Herms, I can’t be you.”</p><p>“I’m <em>not</em> being you,” Hermann says, starts an eye-roll, and stops before he even gets a quarter of the way with a hiss of pain. His eye’s ringed red—no <em>wonder</em> that wasn’t fun for him. “I am <em>mocking</em> you, Newton.”</p><p>Newt nods. The lines are scripted, rehearsed, they <em>both</em> know this, but, y'know, he’s going to forgive Hermann for clinging to their…<em>rivalry</em> right now. He <em>is</em> pretty stressed. “You were right, by the way,” he says; non-sequitur, but Hermann knows what he means.</p><p>“I often…often <em>am,</em>” he says, the last bit hissed, stressed, and he pitches forward suddenly. Newt darts, as quickly as he can, given he’s not doing to stellar with motor control right now, forward to stabilise him.</p><p>“Which one of us wins arguments seven out of eight times?” Newt challenges.</p><p>“<em>I</em> do, Newton,” Hermann says.</p><p>Newt scowls at him, and then at the ground. He is, unfortunately, <em>right.</em> “Look, just <em>walk,</em>” he says, instead. “We gotta get to that helicopter, dude, gotta get back to LOCCENT and tell them what we know. Help save the world.”</p><p>“We’ll be rockstars,” Hermann says, deadpan, and grips Newt a bit more tightly when he almost stumbles and falls over.</p><p>“Myeah,” Newt hums. “Rockstars. C'mon, bud, one foot in front of the other.”</p><p>Hermann huffs at him, but he doesn’t protest.</p>
<hr/><p>It takes a bit, but Newt manages to get the both of them out of the medbay and to somewhere more comfortable. Namely, <em>bed.</em></p><p><em>Hermann’s</em> bed, in fact, and Newt lets his head fall onto the pristine white pillow and groans, “Dude, I straight-up would <em>die</em> to sleep with these every night.”</p><p>“No need for that,” Hermann says, from above him, actually taking the time to get changed instead of throwing himself face-first, clothed in the thin medical gown, onto the bed. “My bed’s always open to you.”</p><p>Normally, Newt would crack some mild to moderately inappropriate joke, but now, all he does is groan again and let his eyes fall shut. Sleep. He wants to <em>sleep,</em> blessed, blessed darkness, oh god, that sounds <em>so</em> good right now—</p><p>And it’s not going to happen. Because Hermann’s laid down next to him, and he’s <em>humming.</em></p><p>Specifically, he’s humming <em>I Still Don’t Miss You,</em> which is to say he’s humming <em>Black Velvet Rabbits</em> and he’s humming the song Newt wrote that is, ostensibly, about a one-night stand, but is <em>actually</em> more about the four-year-long intellectual fling he lowkey had with Hermann until <em>that</em> ended awfully and he spent a week in alternates crying and drinking and <em>not</em> sleeping and trying to put his words to paper and wound up with one of the last songs he’d ever preform with the Rabbits, and not even a proper performance, really, given that it was about three people besides them and he never officially got it put in their discography.</p><p>It is, quite frankly, an awful, vent-fuelled song, and really does <em>not</em> paint Hermann in a great light, which, in retrospect, was <em>not</em> really fair of him.</p><p>“Uh, Hermann?” he attempts, a little cautiously, “you realise you’re humming a song you’ve never heard, right?”</p><p>“Er—what?” Hermann says, stopping his humming, <em>finally.</em></p><p>“There’s no recordings of it anywhere,” Newt says, slowly.</p><p>“No, Newton, but you <em>insist</em> on <em>singing</em> every one of your awful songs in my vicinity,” Hermann says, “something was bound to get stuck at some point.”</p><p>“…ah,” Newt says, very eloquently. Offers a weak smile.</p><p>“<em>However,</em>” Hermann continues, “I <em>would</em> appreciate a bit of clarification, since, as of three hours ago, I’ve been made aware that <em>I</em> was the subject of the song in question.”</p><p>“<em>Ah,</em>” Newt says, again, and tries to will the ground to suddenly open up beneath him. This is. This is horrifically embarrassing. “Well, to be fair,” he says, “I <em>wasn’t</em> thinking straight.”</p><p>Hermann <em>hmmphs</em> quietly, and lets Newt continue. “I mean, like—okay, so, um. Picture this. Newt Geiszler, age twenty-three, sitting in—actually, no,” he shakes his head; stops, when he realises how odd the motion is. “Um. You know the lead-up. Anyway. Okay, now imagine I’m falling in love with you. Can you picture it? Like, the, um—”</p><p>“I do not need a lesson on visualisation, Newton,” Hermann says, voice dry as the fucking Sahara.</p><p>“Oh, shut up,” Newt snaps. “Now picture that backwards.” There’s a moment of silence, and then Newt adds, “I mean, okay, like, to be fair, I wasn’t probably <em>actually</em> in love with you, because, um, what does that even <em>mean?</em> but I <em>thought</em> I was, and—” he’s kind of running out of air, apparently, but his lungs only decide to inform him of it <em>now</em> and so he trails off with an undignified wheeze.</p><p>“<em>Newton,</em>” Hermann says, sharply, for someone who’s face Newt knows for a fact is half-smushed into his own pillow.</p><p>Right. Breathe. Inhale oxygen, exhale CO2. That’s a thing he can do. Totally.</p><p>“Anyway. My point is. I’m sorry for slightly freaking out about you humming a kind of shitty vent-song I wrote about you,” Newt says, and winces at how pathetic it sounds.</p><p>“Apology accepted,” Hermann says, far more gracious than he really <em>ought</em> to be about this. “If it assuages your guilt at all, you have, in the past five years, shown that you aren’t the man I met in 2017.”</p><p>“God, I hope not,” Newt says. “2017 me was a <em>dick.</em>”</p><p>“Mm, agreed,” Hermann murmurs. “Now I’m sure there’s a larger conversation to be had here, but <em>please,</em> let’s have it in the morning, when both of us are better-rested.”</p><p>“…probably a good idea,” Newt concedes. “Also, for the record, I’m <em>not</em> in love with you now, either, but I kind of like-like you.”</p><p>“I <em>often</em> have good ideas,” Hermann says, and then adds, in a <em>really</em> bad impression of Newt, “<em>like-like,</em>” but his voice is sleep-laden and, really, <em>annoyingly</em> adorable.</p><p>“Shut up, I hate you,” Newt grumbles. “I can’t believe I ever thought I was in love with you.”</p><p>“Mm,” Hermann says, because he just <em>has</em> to get the last word in, “<em>sleep.</em> Now, please.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>you can find me at <a href="https://autisticharrow.tumblr.com/">autisticharrow</a> on tumblr</p></blockquote></div></div>
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